"Oh, Honora," she cried. "How lovely you look! Appetites? We're famished."
XXX
Another week went by, and though it went swiftly, still at the end of the time it seemed long, as very happy and significant times do. Honora was still weak, but as every comfort had been provided for her journey, it seemed more than probable that she would be benefited in the long run by the change, however exhausting it might be temporarily.
"It's the morning of the last day," said Wander at breakfast. "Honora is to treat herself as if she were the finest and most highly decorated bohemian glass, and save herself up for her journey. All preparations, I am told, are completed. Very well, then. Do you and I ride to-day, Miss Barrington?"
"'Here we ride,'" quoted Kate. Then she flushed, remembering the reference.
Did Karl recognize it--or know it? She could not tell. He could, at will, show a superb inscrutability.
Whether he knew Browning's poem or not, Kate found to her irritation that she did. Lines she thought she had forgotten, trooped--galloped--back into her brain. The thud of them fell like rhythmic hoofs upon the road.
"Then we began to ride. My soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.
What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss."
She wove her braids about her head to the measure; buckled her boots and buttoned her habit; and then, veiled and gauntleted she went down the stairs, still keeping time to the inaudible tune:--